Martin Backes

I facilitate and teach innovation processes, work as a product designer & strategist, workshop designer, and design sprint coach. Companies and institutions hire me to activate and facilitate innovation and change within their teams and organizations. I help them to develop and improve products, services, processes, and business models that set them apart – faster, while saving time, money, and resources. I am based in Berlin and work on-site as well as remotely across different time zones.

I`ve been working on Freelance projects since 2008 and gained immense experience consulting and designing for brands, mobile platforms and websites, automotive in-car entertainment and infotainment systems, music soft- and hardware, interfaces for museums, financial services, interactive/non-interactive installations, and art installations. My passion for design spans all known (and some unknown) forms of media.

Focus: Sound & Media Design, Interactive Media, Event & Live Communication, Media-Enhanced Scenography, Museography, Exhibition Design, Multi-Sensory Marketing, Audio Branding, Digital Music

Besides working for the industry, I'm an artist playing with the ambiguity between the physical world and the digital realm, reflecting the blurred boundaries between analog + digital, reality + simulation, stability + disruption, figure + abstraction. My cross-border and experimental field of activity in the intermediate area of art, science, technology, and culture ranges from augmented reality & multimedia sound works to theatre dance pieces and installations, as well as sculptural and computer works.

• Process Lead: development and execution of blinkist’s brand and communications strategy for sound and audiovisual media • Mentoring, coaching and supporting founders, stakeholders through workshops (design thinking, design / brand sprints), meetings, etc. • Contracting & legal advice • Production & Design Lead: Leading the execution and production of blinkist’s brand and communications strategy for sound and audiovisual media

Focus: Brand Design, Mobile Design, UX / IA / IXD / UI Design • Developed and launched Soda app for iOS, the first modualr DJ app • Created information architecture, user interface, flows, wireframes & rapid prototypes for mobile and the overall Brand Design, Logo Design, etc.

In my more than 7 years of teaching at different universities in Berlin (started at BTK at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in 2010), I have worked with students of all ages and enjoyed it a lot. I have taught different courses such as interaction design, brand communication and sound design. Beyond working directly with students, I have also enjoyed developing new course materials. These have included revising exam papers, creating worksheets and projects, and of course the awarding of marks.

Focus: User Experience & Interaction Design, Research, Innovation Design, Sound Design, Audiovisual Design, Prototyping, HMI Concepts, User Interviews & Usability Testing, Surveys

Sound Designer

Tonstudio Praktikum bei Media Musik Hattendorf in Berlin

Media Design, Generative Design, Computional Art, Interactive, Interaction Design

Klanganthropologie und Klangökologie, Experimentelle Klanggestaltung, Auditive Mediengestaltung und Akustische Konzeption